Dates
by hannahjap
Summary: Many of the events extremely important to the plot or characters of DN were skipped over in the manga completely. This fanfic intends to explore them; from long before the start of the series, to many years after the end. Featuring most of the characters.
1. 12th December, 1987

**12****th**** December, 1987**

**A remote village somewhere in Russia.**

It was snowing. Not the pleasant, soft kind but the gruelling kind that makes it hard to move and sometimes even breath. It poured as if from a tear in the sky upon the desolate landscape; smothering it. The only break in the ground cover was a pathway made and quickly recovered by a man forcing his way through the storm. It seemed, except to him, a pointless and punishing endeavour.

After almost a full day of trekking, the man reached his target. It was a tiny hamlet built of poorly put-together homes and buildings, all coated in the remains of the completed blizzard. It was a sorry sight. The residents of the village eyed the man warily without ever approaching him. They were, evidently, not used to visitors. And probably not fond of them either.

Making his way through what in a real town would be called streets, he finally came to the door of the building he wanted. Like the others, it was in disrepair; although perhaps a little more than some. It was one of the larger buildings he'd seen. He knocked on the door.

A tired-looking woman answered it and, with a faintly fearful look, let him in. The inside was no better. The front room had poorly-preserved floorboards and a wooden chair, with two or three books scattered on the floor. The woman, still worried, pointed at one of the two doors against the far wall. He thanked her and went to open it.

This room was different. There were three iron bed frames pushed against one wall, each with an aged mattress atop it. On the floor, piles of papers lay all around, accompanied by books and the occasional pencil. Two children, both under ten, sat against the back wall. They stared wide-eyed at the intruder. It was not them, however, which had brought him here. It was the other child, who sat awkwardly and did not bother to look up from his steady writing, that had managed that.

The man knelt down beside the boy to observe his work. It seemed to be some form of complicated equation and, from what he could tell, the boy was making it up on the spot. He cleared his throat to catch his attention, but the child would still not let his eyes leave his work.

"That is very impressive," he said; speaking in Russian. Now the boy glanced up at him.

"Yes," he said. "But why did you come here for it?" He spoke in only slightly fractured English. The man was surprised. He'd been told to expect something like this, but he hadn't been willing to believe it.

"What is your name?" he asked; switching to English. The boy seemed uncomfortable. He stopped writing.

"Lawliet," he said at last. The man nodded.

"I'm Quillish Wammy. And I hear you're very intelligent."

--

After trying for a while more to coax the young Lawliet to talk to him, and failing, he left the room to speak with the woman. She still seemed wary of him, but at least told him everything he asked her about.

His parents had both died several winters ago, at which point he had been brought to the tiny orphanage. After a year there, she, the owner, had noticed him taking an interest in the few books they had. They were very simple books, as most of the children who passed through there could not read, with lots of pictures. As far as she had been aware, he had not been able to read when he'd arrived. When she asked him, he said he'd taught himself. After that, she brought him a few more complicated books and watched as he learnt how to read them. He even managed the English ones. She brought him paper and saw him teach himself to make equations and write. None of the children she'd ever seen before could do that.

It didn't take long for the whole village to hear. A few people came to leer at the child. Word spread to the rare traveller passing through and, eventually, to the outside world. One day, as just a passing rumour, an ageing inventor got wind of the story of a young genius in the remotest reaches of Russia.

Against advice, he had decided to investigate.

As the conversation between the two of them lulled, the door to the children's room opened and Lawliet peered around it. It seemed perhaps that he had been listening. Wammy moved over to the door and looked at the eight year old.

"Do you understand that you are gifted?" he asked. Lawliet nodded. "Well then, I have an offer for you. Would you like to try and utilize your gift..?" He nodded once more. "Then please gather your things. I've arranged for transportation back down to the city." Lawliet stepped fully into the front room.

"I have no things. I am ready to go right now."

--

_**A/N --** Hello there! Yes, this is my new fanfic and, as I mentioned, it's different. Different as it's not a flowing story. This fanfic will be based around the Death Note storyline, but each chapter will tell the events of a certain date. None of these will be retellings of the actual manga (and yes, it's manga dates, not anime). All the dates will be written as in the thirteenth book, unless there is no date given for the event. In addition, I'll give the location at the start of each chapter so that confusion is minimalized._

_I hope you enjoy this; I've had the idea for ages and can't wait to get underway!_


	2. 22nd June, 1993

**22****nd**** June, 1993**

**A few turns off the main road, somewhere in the English countryside.**

It was quiet. It was a quiet day. It hadn't been, earlier that morning, but it was now. Eerily so. And it was that way because, earlier that morning, something had happened which had caused all the birds in the nearest trees to scatter and flee.

There'd been a touch of rain. Not a lot, really, but obviously enough. Back at the main road it was not even noticeable. Down here, along a few narrower country roads, it suddenly became more apparent.

It hadn't been a good idea. Of course, in retrospect, anyone could see that. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Or at least, not a bad one.

On the woodland side of the road the grass had been disturbed. It had the look of a point where an animal had scurried out and attempted to cross the road. Across from it, on the side of the road which oversaw a steep decline into the woods, the brush was considerably more disrupted. The trees had been forced to the sides and suffered broken branches. The grass and plants had been crushed into the mud. Following the tumultuous new pathway down the hill; eventually the cause was revealed.

There was a huge old tree. It had been there perhaps long before the roads had been built. It was about a metre thick and, as such, had braced the hit well. The car had not done so well. On the outside, the paintwork was scratched away by the constant barrage of low branches it had suffered against. The windshield and two front windows had smashed at the moment of impact and rained glass both outwards and inwards. The front half of the car had crumpled into the tree trunk. Unsurprisingly, the couple in those two seats had not fared very well.

It was a fox. They'd been driving along the road, which had been hard enough in an old car with the rain coming down, trying to make sense of the directions they'd been given. The woman had been consulting a map irritably while the man tried to divide his attention between driving and looking out for road signs. And then, at just the wrong moment, just as she asked him to look at something on the map, a fox darted out in front of the car. He saw it just in time and swerved. Unfortunately, with all the combined factors of rain and the tiny road and panic, the car went over the edge of the decline and rocketed into the woods below. It had crashed down the hill without being able to stop and finally hit the tree at speed.

The woman and the man had been killed in the impact. With perhaps a shout or a scream, but without any time to really appreciate it. That was earlier that morning. It was just after noon now.

It was quiet. Since the crash, since the commotion, it had been quiet. Almost silent. And then, it was not.

In the back seat of the car, a spot mostly protected from the glass rain and the impact of the tree, the other passenger of the car stirred.

They'd been asleep before the car had gone off the road. In the minute or so before the crash, while the three of them careened through the woods, they had been awake. They'd absorbed it all. Too young to understand what was happening, maybe, but able to understand what the shouting inside and the scratching outside meant. And finally, when the car crashed and the two in the front jolted and then did not move or scream again, they went back to sleep. Not because they didn't care or appreciate what had happened; but because it was all that could be done. And now, they were awake.

It was probably the child seat, placed in the middle of the backseat, which had absorbed the worst of the crash and protected its owner from it. They were, save a few bruises, perfectly fine. They looked around the interior of the car; taking in the damage. Their eyes hovered on the bodies of their parents. They wouldn't remember them later in life. He wouldn't.

Later on, that evening in fact, another car would choose to take the awkward country turnoff. The driver would see the damage halfway up the road and choose to investigate. It would be dark by then, so they would go to the boot of their car and take out a torch. Carefully and slowly, they would make their way on foot down the newly carved path through the trees.

Eventually they would come to the wreck. They would look into the front seat and step back in shock, clutching their mouth with one hand. They would gag and drop the torch. As they reached down and picked it up, it would illuminate a pair of dark grey eyes in the backseat. And finally, this other driver would notice the lone survivor.

The child would forget it. Over their life, they would forget what had happened to them on that day. Ever so occasionally, in a dream, they might see a flash of it and wake up in a hurry, but it would never really be real to them again. A dream, a nightmare, and nothing more.

When they would be, throughout their childhood, passed between orphanages and eventually settled into the finest in the world, they may perhaps wonder from time to time what had happened. No-one would tell them because, honestly, no-one really knew. It was marked somewhere in a file that their parents had been killed in a car crash, but the details were not there, and the file would be lost long before that final orphanage. So they would always wonder, and never connect those rare dreams to it.

Subconsciously, the memory would always be with him. It would be the trauma from it that held him back from ever growing properly and that prevented his hair from darkening beyond the soft white colour it had been back then. But no, he would never know again.

After that day was over, he would never know.


	3. 15th May, 1994

**15****th**** May, 1994**

**Tokyo, Japan**

It was a plain day. Plain skies and plain streets. Listless. In his room, a young boy sat and read to himself from a book that was seemingly too big for him to grasp. He sat on the floor, by the foot of his bed, with his back straight and furrowed his brow at the complicated words spread out before him. He didn't have to read it, he supposed, but he'd like to. It interested him. Learning, reading… that sort of plain thing.

He was certainly intelligent. Maybe not a born genius, but extremely dedicated and focused. He'd made himself into a genius already; by this age. Eight.

To be fair, he didn't even fully know why he wanted it. His parents had always been proud of him, but hadn't pushed him too hard in the direction of brilliance. He'd chosen this path for himself. Without knowing why, but knowing that it had significance for his life. He needed to do this now.

Intelligence, for him, had always brought with it a comforting wash of security. If you knew more than other people, then you were better. Or not better, but better _equipped_. You were readier and stronger than they were. You could do anything. Yes, that was probably the reason. He could do anything. Be anyone.

He placed the heavy book down by his side and took in a deep breath to refresh himself. It was hard. Over time, it would get much easier for him. Studying. Being better…

He ran a hand through his brown hair to wipe away a few resilient beads of sweat that had formed with concentration and a weak heat. He got to his feet and wandered over to the window, which had a pleasant view of the street below. He could see a lot from there.

People-watching was amusing. He wasn't incredibly attached to people in general; making small exception for his family, especially his little sister, but he found them amusing to watch. And when people thought no-one was watching them, they revealed a lot about themselves.

He had seen once, last month it had been, a man speaking into a phone about something to do with business. He hadn't understood the jargon, but when the man in the street had spoken quietly down the line about unpaid workers he had known what was meant. And then again, a week later, when a woman had wandered down the street in the early evening looking from side to side and covering mostly with one hand a fresh black eye, he had understood basically what had happened.

People. People did bad things, it seemed to him. Of course he knew that already. His father was a police officer, so he knew, in sketchy detail, that people did bad things. It was just more interesting to see it first hand; outside his window. It was almost amusing…

Of course, when it was a victim he saw out in the street, he felt pity for them. Never true empathy; he had always been a little too self-absorbed for empathy, but he did truly pity them. He didn't appreciate the suffering of the wretched masses. And so, over time, he had grown more and more to dislike and even hate the people who caused those sorts of things to happen. Murderers, especially. Now, they were very bad people.

He went back to his book after a while and reopened it to the same page. He allowed his mind to shift away as he read. He wondered if, one day, he'd be able to help them. Those poor, victimized people he caught sight of in the street and heard about in snippets from his father and the news programs on the television. Maybe.

He'd like to help them. He had a good heart. A heart full of light.


	4. 21st November, 1995

**21****st**** November, 1995**

**Slovenia**

Rain pounded against the thin wood of the coffin lid several feet below the handful of onlookers gathered around the open grave. Not many people had shown to pay their respects. The woman who now lay in a box beyond their feet was not respected or popular. It was very likely that only one of the people at her poorly attended funeral did not in some way resent wasting their time with the appearance.

The slam of a bible closing signified that the charade was over. Two of the mourners immediately turned to make their leave. The priest stared with a veiled look of disparagement at the remaining two. One, an old woman, matched his expression. At once, both sets of eyes focused on the quietest attendant of the funeral.

The child; five, but by all impressions younger, clutched a handful of dirt tightly in his fist. He'd lifted it from the wet ground the moment the priest's words finished. His face was entirely blank of expression or purpose, and his clear, light blue eyes stared dumbly straight ahead. The old woman, obviously eager to get out of the rain and with no appreciation of why she was outside in the first place, kicked the child in the back of the leg, urging him to hurry up. He jumped, having been woken out of his trance, and looked at the damp mass in his hand.

The boy took a step forward and peered over the edge of the grave. Silently, he released the dirt, and it sailed downwards to smack against the wood. The noise echoed through the quiet graveyard, announcing to the other residents that they had a new neighbour.

That evening, the boy sat in an old chair and waited to be told what to do. He had said not one word since leaving the funeral hours ago. The old woman who had brought him back to her house was standing in the kitchen with a younger woman. She had brown hair pulled back into a bun and a nature about her of kindness, but also of weakness and ineffectualness. The sort of person who would try, and would care if she did not succeed, but would very quickly forget.

The two women spoke in lowered voices so that the child in the next room did not hear them. The elder was annoyed and spoke with much wringing of her hands. The younger woman rarely met her eyes and her voice faltered now and then, as if her argument had little backing. Eventually, their conversation ended.

The young woman stepped out of the kitchen. She went over to the boy and leant forward so she could look at him properly as she spoke. When she did, her tone was vaguely patronizing.

"Hello young man," she said; speaking in Slovenian. He glanced at her and did not answer. She smiled in a manner showing far too much of her teeth.

"How are you feeling?" Again, he did not answer her. The old woman appeared in the doorway and looked with disapproval at this negotiator of sorts attempting lamely to make contact with her grandson.

The woman realised that her efforts at small talk were fruitless, and instead went to fetch a small bag from a side table. She moved back to stand in front of the boy again and held it in front of him.

"This is for you. Do you know what it is?" He looked at her carefully and, as if realising he would never be released without playing along for her, he finally opened his mouth to speak.

"It is my mother's," he said quietly and clearly. The woman's smile slipped a little. The old woman stepped forward into the room.

"It _was_ your mother's," she corrected. The boy glared at her with the icy strength of his pale eyes. She ignored his contempt completely. The young woman cleared her throat and held the bag out.

"Take it," she invited. He lifted it from her hand and gently tugged it open.

There were only two items inside the confines of the cloth. The first was a wrinkled photograph which had, foolishly, been placed inside the bag and allowed to crease. It depicted a woman in her early twenties clutching a baby. The woman had long, honey-coloured hair and warm green eyes. She was happy in her little Polaroid prison. The other woman, the one who was outside the frame, with her semblance of thoughtfulness, took it from the child and looked at it. She smiled at it and then at the boy, with no understanding.

"You look a lot like your mother, Miha."

"Mihael," he automatically corrected. He disliked the shortened version. He was fond of his name, and didn't appreciate people turning it to their liking. Why should they?

He removed the other item from the bag. It was a rosary; classic, wooden and very traditional. He had many memories of his mother praying with it. Despite the opinion of their neighbours and friends, his mother had been a good catholic.

The two women, leaving Mihael to his few worldly possessions, resumed their spat in the privacy of the kitchen.

"There are no relatives?" the young woman asked with a new, more comfortable, business-like tone. The elder shook her head briskly.

"No, only myself." The young woman nodded pensively.

"What about the father?" Another shake of the head.

"Gone."

"Dead..?" The old woman snorted with disdainful amusement.

"Gone. Before the child was born; gone."

The young woman furrowed her brow and nodded. She did not question or comment on the situation. She was merely there to fix the problem which had befallen the old woman.

"Your daughter did not have much money, and she did not have many friends."

"My daughter was young and foolish," was the response.

Mihael had wandered over to the doorway after admitting to himself he couldn't look at the photograph anymore. He clutched his mother's rosary tightly and listened through the closed door.

"Will you take the child?" he heard the old woman ask. There was a pause as the question was considered.

"With no money, I can only do so much. I don't know anywhere that will take him. Are you sure he can't live with you?"

"I do not want him in my house. Before today I'd only met my daughter's child once, and I have not spoken to my daughter since she told me she would be raising him alone."

The young woman hmm-ed with appreciation. The elderly woman who had hired her to handle the affairs of her dead daughter, including her son, was even more traditionally strict than the neighbours and acquaintances who had judged the young mother mercilessly simply because her finger was shy of a ring. It seemed that the old woman was equally ashamed of her grandson, and wished for no more than to be rid of him quickly.

"I will give you a little money to take him somewhere, if you can do it today." The young woman hesitated for only a moment.

"You don't care what it is like..?"

"Just find somewhere he can stay. I don't want to be troubled with this matter again."

Mihael had stopped listening. He was intelligent; far, far more intelligent than anyone aside from his mother had ever bothered to realise. He understood the situation.

Gently, with great respect for the item, he pulled the rosary over his neck and moved back to his chair; waiting for the young woman to come out and take him away for good.


	5. 5th December, 1995

**5****th**** December, 1995**

**Southampton, England**

The flat was very, very small. It was positioned above a butcher shop and the two windows, one in the living room and one in the kitchen, both looked out on other dismal, grey buildings. The wallpaper was faded and peeling and the carpet was shedding. Overall, it was a miracle the place had been rented to begin with. However, the resident of the flat did not even notice his surroundings on a daily basis. He was always preoccupied.

The living room table bore several unwashed plates, each with a reddish smudge somewhere on it. There was also one teaspoon, and an advent calendar.

The door to the living room was pushed inwards and a scrawny teenager entered through it. His almost-black hair reached his shoulders and was plagued with split ends and the occasional different-length lock which he had cut simply because it was getting in his eyes. He sat on the sofa, pulling his knees up.

After a moment in which he seemed to drift away, he turned his attention to the calendar and pried open the fifth door. He carefully removed the sweet inside and ate it thoughtfully. He was not that fond of sweets, but he knew someone who was, and he attempted to emulate that person at every turn.

At sixteen, and living alone, he had little else to cling to.

By the afternoon, he'd cleaned up the plates and spoon and was sitting on the floor of his tiny bedroom; a doll in front of him. It was a little stuffed rag doll, and he had drawn on it a simplistic set of organs.

From the floor beside him, he took a small, sharp knife and gently sliced away one arm and one leg. He replaced the knife and moved the two severed limbs away from the doll. Next, taking a pen, he drew a twelve above the doll, a six below, and a three and nine to the sides. His tongue darted out of his mouth and over his lips with concentration as he moved the two remaining limbs to point towards the numbers. He moved back to take it in. He had made a human clock. A doll clock, anyway.

--

He stuck his fingers once again into the jam jar and then into his mouth. It was blueberry jam this time around; a change of pace.

The teen had laid several sheets of paper out on his table before him. They were all covered with notes and scribbles. One sheet, obviously the latest, depicted the human clock which he had designed on the floor.

The boy smiled to himself. With every day since he had left Wammy's house, he had thought about L, and how to one day top him. Some time shortly after turning sixteen he had decided to become L's opposite. L was going to, one day, become a fantastic detective. He would, one day, commit a string of murders so complex even L would never solve them. It was perfect.

He walked through to his bathroom and stood before the mirror. Taking up a pair of rusted scissors, he began to hack at his fringe. It took twenty minutes for him to finish.

When he was done, he put down the scissors and looked at himself. His dark hair now hung much shorter in spiky clumps, sticking up at the top and framing his face; a face which now far more than ever resembled his idol's.

It was on that day that he, Beyond Birthday, was no longer completely Beyond Birthday. He was, from then on, both Beyond Birthday and, more significantly, L's opposite.


	6. 1st February, 1996

**1****st ****February, 1996**

**Kenora, Canada**

The window out of which the small boy stared was misted over with that light kind of rain; the kind for which you forgo a jacket, but which can get you very wet, very quickly. No-one was outside, unsurprisingly. The boy was watching for when they would be.

He was alone. The house was not very big, and yet to a boy of six it seemed very big and empty indeed. He wasn't often alone, and so he remained stuck to the glass of the misty window and waited for the moment when he would be safe again. When his parents would return. It wouldn't be too long now.

They'd been gone for an hour, although it seemed far longer than that to him. His thoughts remained focused on his mother; of her ruffling his hair and smiling at him, and her assurance that the trip wouldn't take too long. They'd be back soon. Twenty minutes tops.

They hadn't been supposed to leave. No, they shouldn't have done, but there had been a minor complication. Minor, just a little thing, and it shouldn't take too long to resolve. Twenty minutes tops, hopefully less.

The boy blinked once, his eyes still fixed on the outside world through the warped view of the pane. There really was no-one out there. He hadn't seen anyone outside since he'd watched his parents walk out to their bashed up car and drive away. He'd waved at them, but he was rather sure they hadn't seen him. They hadn't looked back.

It was his own fault they were gone right now. The night before, his mother had baked a cake, wrapped it, and placed it carefully on the side. After his parents had gone to bed, he, being impatient and curious, had tried to reach up to the counter and take a look at it before he was permitted to. He wasn't really tall enough. His only accomplishment was in managing to knock the cake to the floor. With a horrified look at his handiwork, he'd fled the kitchen and tucked himself back into bed where he was supposed to be until the morning. When his mother discovered the ruined cake, he'd denied any involvement, and she had believed him. At which point his parents had decided to head to the shops early and replace it. He'd argued at first, but they were happily insistent. You can't have a birthday without a cake.

Now he waited, alone, lonely. They'd been a long time; too long. They would come back. They must. And yet he was worried, as children get. This wasn't the plan. Not today, not his birthday.

After another fifteen minutes, he saw someone moving outside. The morose green eyes filled with hope and joy. Finally! And yet, his parents had been in their car. Still, it must be them that he saw outside through the rain splatters.

As he narrowed his eyes to a squint to see them better, more figures appeared. There were nine or ten outside now. Perhaps his parents had returned with friends?

The people outside were talking to one another. He could just about see that. Then they started talking with their hands; flinging their arms around and pointing. It looked like they were all really angry. He was frightened. His parents wouldn't be angry like that. They'd just gone to buy a cake.

The rain was beating harder than before on the window and it made it harder for him to make out what was happening. He saw one of the crowd, maybe a man, address the others. This man spoke with his whole body. He waved his arms around and pointed and paced and shook his head and all the while was talking to the others. Then another person started to yell at him, and another at them. The group dissolved into panic once more.

Suddenly, another figure appeared. The boy squinted but couldn't make them out properly. He could only vaguely see them push through the crowd, even though some of the people tried to stop them. He saw them begin to run, and move towards his window. As they came towards his house, he saw that they were a woman. Closer, and he recognised the red hair tumbling down their back and soaked from the rain. As they neared the front door and he cried out, he realised something was wrong with his mother.

He rushed to the door and jumped up to release the handle, just as she reached it. Before he could even speak, she took him in her arms and held him tighter than ever before. He squeaked; still terrified by the sudden shock, the cold and her appearance. His mother pulled away, but kept her hands around his back. She stared at him, a shaky smile across her face.

She was wet from being outside in the horrible weather, but it was not the only thing which had left her dishevelled. Her cheeks were lined with tear tracks, and now that she held her son, they were quickly stained by fresh ones, too. Her hair, which had been held up before she'd left, was free and wild. Her clothes were a mess. Something was wrong. When she began to speak, he noticed the flecks of blood on her face.

"Mail, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry Mail, I didn't want this to happen. Not today. It was supposed to be special. I'm so, so sorry Mail."


	7. 6th February, 1996

**6****th ****February, 1996**

**Kenora, Canada**

Less than a week had passed since his birthday. It had been unimaginable. Last Thursday, the day of his sixth birthday, his parents had left the house to get a birthday cake. They had driven to a shop two miles from his house, and walked inside, laughing and chatting about the day the three of them would have. His father had kissed his mother lightly on the forehead, then gone to fetch a cake suitable for his son's special occasion. The mother had then hummed cheerfully as she turned to the nearest aisle to glance over sweets, wondering if there would be anything else to buy whilst they were on their little errand.

She heard a shout and turned sharply, but saw nothing. Her view was obscured by shelves and displays. She crept along in the safety of the stock, alerted to a potential danger. As she reached the end of the aisle, she stuck her head around. At exactly the same moment, she saw the arm thrust up into the air and heard the release of a bullet, streaming up through the ceiling like a wild firework. Next came a screaming match; it was her panic, the shopkeeper's desperation, and the angry, steadily intensifying commands of the robber. Every one of them grew louder and louder, as if it was a race to fill the room with shouts, and the winner would get what they wanted. Before the voices managed to make it to the door and escape the shop, and alert any potential passer-by, a loud bang hushed them all to silence. The silence lasted for only moments before it was broken by a hasty tread of footsteps and the gentle ping of the shop door opening and closing.

When the sparse collection of local police officers arrived, they concluded that the attempted robbery had been the work of a teenager or someone only slightly older; a opportunistic type who hadn't expected anything to go wrong. They decided that the man who lay sprawled backwards in the bakery aisle had caught sight of the gun and shouted out to his wife, and in a panic the kid had shot him. The woman who was curled on the floor with a hole in her chest had maybe tried to escape, maybe screamed for the owner of the place to call the police. After he'd killed them both, the opportunist had fled, terrified.

None of this, of course, would be of any comfort to the six year old sitting in his bedroom alone. Whenever he heard the breeze lead branches to tap meanly against his window, he heard his parents calling out to him. Whenever there were voices outside the house, they belonged to his parents. Whenever his aunt came upstairs to check on him, she was his mother, rushing in to hug him and hold him and tell him again how sorry she was. How terribly, terribly sorry. Sometimes when he saw her, she was perfectly polished, as she was when they went to church on Christmas day. Othertimes, her hair was wild, her eyes huge, and she was sprinkled with blood. He didn't know exactly what had happened to her, so the banshee vision was always different.

He heard someone knock at the door, and after initially envisioning his parents returning with a huge and brightly decorated cake, he dismissed it as another concerned neighbour or distant friend. They kept bringing food, in some awful, ironic, tribute. There were even cakes. He didn't think he much cared for sweet things anymore. He didn't really much care to eat. It worried his already overstretched aunt, but she didn't have the energy to force him. Sudden creaks on the stairs announced the approach of the woman, but he noticed too the sound of another pair of feet. Whoever had been at the door was obviously especially pushy. He was sick of people asking him how he felt. How did they think he felt..?

The two unwelcome visitors knocked on his door, and without waiting to be denied or ignored, his aunt opened it. He glanced up. Standing just behind her in the doorway was an old man with white hair wearing a bowler hat. He looked like an old-fashioned television character. This made Mail curious, if only slightly, as he had never seen the man before, and had expected one of his parents' friends. His aunt offered a withering look to the both of them, then left. The man stepped into the room and took a seat beside the boy.

"I can understand how you feel," he said, after a while. Mail didn't reply. He didn't believe him. The stranger didn't force conversation, or seem anxious for a response, like most people. He waited. Eventually, he asked "do you like to read?" Mail shook his head. He wasn't that fond of reading. Most of the time, everything seemed so fake. "What do you like?" was the next question.

"I like puzzles," Mail confessed after a long wait. Seizing on the information, the man asked him what kind he meant. "Crosswords and things. And number squares." He felt almost happy to talk about it; it was the first time since his birthday that someone had asked him a question that wasn't a variant on 'are you OK?'.

"My name is Quillish Wammy. And I'm here because your school thinks you're gifted." No response. "Do you understand?" No response.

Mail didn't understand. He didn't understand why someone had come right now to ask him what he liked, and to check to see if he was smart like his teacher thought he was. His mother had asked him once if he'd like to go to a boarding school outside the town where he'd get better help. He hadn't wanted to, and he'd thought momentarily that she wanted to send him away because he'd been bad. She'd managed to reassure him, and nothing had been said about his penchant for maths problems since then. Why now?

"I've come now," continued Wammy, reading directly from Mail's thoughts, "because of your new situation. The loss of your parents. I understand that it's hard, and that you don't want to have to think about the future right now, but I am going to make you an offer." The boy stared up at him, with his green eyes suddenly filled with interest. "If you would like to utilize your gift, and to become something more, then I would ask that you consider coming to the orphanage that I run, in England. It is full of children like you who deserve more in their lives. Children who are special."

Mail considered it. England was a long way away. He'd never been outside of the country before. All he knew about England were the things he'd heard on the television, and the things everyone knew. He didn't know if he'd want to live there. And anyway, he wasn't 'special'. He was maybe smart, but he wasn't different. He didn't even know what the capital of England was, so he couldn't be very smart. If he went there, the other people would all be geniuses, and they'd laugh at how stupid he was. They'd ask him to name capital cities, and then they'd ask him to name the Queen, and to sing the national anthem, and he wouldn't know. Then they would taunt him, and push him on the floor, and this man would realise he'd made a mistake then send Mail home. Except he had no home anymore, and that made him think about the alternative.

He imagined going home with his aunt to her house in Maine, which was in America. His mother had fallen out with her sister a long time ago, so he'd never been to his aunt's house before. He knew she had five children of her own, and that they didn't have a lot of money because her husband didn't like to work. Was that why his mother had fallen out with her? He couldn't remember why. He'd only met his cousins once that he remembered, at Christmas one year, and that had been before the youngest one had been born. The oldest of them was ten then, and was twelve now. He'd told Mail that gravy was made out of the stuff inside an octopus' head. Mail wasn't fond of his cousins. If he went to live there, he'd have to share a room with two of them, and his aunt would give him annoyed looks and make him eat broccoli. He couldn't do that.

"What are they like..?" Wammy turned back towards the boy. He'd watched him drift off into a daydream for a few minutes, but now it appeared he was back.

"They're like you, Mail." His voice was kind; it understood. It wasn't lying. Finally, the boy nodded. This was the right decision. It had to be. For just a second, he caught sight of his mother out of the corner of his eye, leaning against the doorframe and smiling warmly at him, promising him that he had made the best choice.

---------------------------------------------

_A/N - I'm aware that I've been very lazy with this 'story'. I adore writing it, honestly, but I struggle to start a chapter sometimes because I have to do quite a bit of fact-checking and research for each one. In addition, I've been working on some other writing projects at the moment. Anyway, I will try to have another chapter of this up before long. Out of interest, does anyone have any particular desires when it comes to events / characters to be included..? Mostly characters, and at which ages you would prefer to see them. If it contradicts something I've already planned, I'm afraid I won't include it, but otherwise I'd be happy to consider suggestions / requests. Thank you!_


	8. 11th April, 1996

**11****th ****April, 1996**

**Winchester, England**

He'd been in the House since he was eight. Now, by sixteen, he'd seen it change considerably. The building had once been a church, and a small school had later been added. The school had closed in the 1920s, and the building had fallen into ruin in many places; the stonework being consumed by a hungry curtain of moss and ivy. It had eventually found its way into the ownership of an aging inventor, who had decided to turn it into a home for children without families. That had been his initial plan. However, after word of the Russian case reached him, Wammy had steadily come upon his eventual vision. A school and house for orphaned geniuses; a sanctity away from the negative influences of society. A training ground for the future leaders of the world. It was a brilliant plan. When Lawliet had first arrived, there had been a handful of older children already living there, none of whom he was permitted to spend too much time with and all of whom left before a great deal of time had passed.

Lawliet was the prodigy. His time was divided between reading, problem-solving, studying history and the sciences, and pursuing his own avenues of interest. By the time he was nine, he was the only child living in the House. Wammy, who was very wealthy after years as a successful inventor, was willing to spoil the boy. He bought him plenty of clothes of all kinds and styles, but found that Lawliet preferred always the simplest and comfiest of garments. He gave him a variety of different toys to play with when he wished to relax, but Lawliet didn't seem to take to any of them. The only treat that the boy actually wanted or asked for was the confectionary kind. It seemed that he had not had such sweet things before in his life, and so he grew to love them very quickly.

When Lawliet turned eleven, he was informed that two new children would be joining him in the House. He was surprised at first, mostly as the implication was that they would be his peers. The other children he had originally lived with here had in no way been his peers. As well as that fact, he had not spoken to another child, or indeed anyone under forty, for two years. It would be interesting.

Wammy had decided some months before this conversation took place that his student needed companionship in some form. He refused to expose him to the dangers of the outside world, but he had watched Lawliet grow steadily more introverted and cold, and had made the decision to locate some like-minded children for him to make friends with. It had taken a great deal of effort and research, but he had finally found two such individuals.

The first of them was a girl named Alice Amato. She was ten years old, and had been in the care of her grandfather until he had died the past winter. She had spent the time since in a small orphanage, and her ability to solve any problem offered to her, as well as her talent for poetry, had alerted her presence to the inventor. The second was a very unusual boy. His name was, oddly enough, Beyond Birthday. At least, that is what he had said his name was. For some reason there seemed to be no-one who could be sure if it was true. His parents were both dead, and he seemed to have no family to speak to. The boy, who was the oldest of the three, had been living in some form of orphanage. It wasn't clear, and it wasn't asked, exactly how legitimate an orphanage it was. No-one was entirely certain where he had originally been born, but Wammy had found him in Korea, and it suited his appearance. Beyond had dark eyes and long dark hair. He was often quiet, but when he spoke he was self-assured. It was unusual for a child with his background.

The two were brought to Wammy's House. However, deciding it best to protect the young and, admittedly, unstable geniuses from one another, as well as anyone else in the future now that the floodgates were creaking open, Wammy insisted that they call each other, and themselves, by letter only. L. A. And B. The three to start it all.

It was never intended for them to be forced into competition with one another. That was not the original plan. L was just so far ahead by the time the other two arrived. B became fascinated with him, to the point that Wammy considered separating the two permanently. B struggled and worked to reach L's level, but he was always left grasping at coat tails. And A, she was left with no choice. She had always been a sensitive girl, but she found herself thrust into an unhealthy game, a game where the winner had already been decided but, cruelly, the players had to continue. Aiming for second place? It took a toll on her; she grew steadily more withdrawn every month.

In the summer of his fourteenth year, L, never one concerned with other people's privacy, wandered into A's room. It was a pleasantly decorated place, with pastel wallpaper and a view of the rarely-used garden. She kept a few picked flowers in a vase on her windowsill. They were dead. A heavy book of Latin sat open on her desk, and next to it stood a stagnant glass of water. The room was neat, and everything was in its place. She was laid on her bed, holding a sheet of poetry. He hadn't seen her write poetry for a while; the last he was aware of had been composed about eight months previously. He approached her and confirmed that she was indeed dead. After pausing, he went and fetched Wammy.

Alice, as he and B were told had been her name, had taken some foxglove with her water. It was pleasantly symbolic of her appreciation for nature. It had stopped her heart. As L quickly discovered, the sheet she had been clutching to her was not a freshly finished poem, but an old ode. It wasn't hard to unlock the imagery she had used; the poem centred around her circumstance of torment, primarily at the hands of a shadowy figure. There was another character, a golden figure, who he discerned was himself. As such, it was clear where he needed to go.

L walked, with a stronger sense of purpose than usual, to his cohort's room. He found B sitting and quite deliberately pretending to read from a novel. When L entered his room, B glanced up, again with a very obvious falseness to his behaviour. L noticed, unwillingly, that B was wearing a pair of jeans that he was relatively certain belonged to him. He had suspected B of stealing things from him before, on occasion, but mostly books and the rare dessert left unguarded.

"B, did you know that A left a poem?" It was a redundant statement, as she was a poet, and had therefore technically left plenty of poems behind after her death.

"Alice enjoyed poems. I believe she found them therapeutic." B's voice had a bizarrely crackly undertone to it, as if his voice box sat perpetually on a thin sheet of paper sprinkled with grit. L and B were discernible by their voices, which was a mercy, as they grew more similar to the eye by the day.

"A had a poem with her. Did you read it?" L asked, trying to scavenge the other teenager's appearance for clues. His face was relatively blank and his eyes, usually unclouded vessels of great emotion, were simply clear. It was a great deal of bother.

"I've read all her poems," was the reply. By now, a thin smile had crept onto B's face. He was beginning to crack, as he always did, with pride at whatever he'd done. Usually L saw this reaction when B had received marginally better feedback than him on a test, or when he'd finished reading a book quicker, and especially when he said something clever or cryptic that no-one else understood. It was, as it were, his 'tell'.

"All of them..?" L questioned, knowing that B was going to tell him everything he wanted to know without much goading anyway.

"She wrote about you a lot. And she wrote about herself. But mostly she wrote about you. You were in most of her poems." The information was beginning to slip out now. L did not ask him if he was in any of her poems, knowing that the shadowy tormenter from the poem acting as her death note was B. B stared at him, the smile expanding.

"How are you with puzzles, L..?" he asked. The question, like L's first, seemed redundant. B was aware that L excelled with puzzles. As such, L did not bother to answer him. "Perhaps you aren't as golden as you think."

"What?" L seized upon the accusation, knowing it to be drawn from A's poem. B was clearly enjoying himself now. He was getting what he wanted.

"The question is, are you the saviour, or are you the torturer? Which of us is good?" B shifted his legs to the side of the bed to face L properly. "Who are you in the story?"

"I didn't do anything to hurt A." It was a defensive response, which was unusual for L, but then again he had not been accused of doing wrong in the moral sense before. Ever, that he recalled.

"Neither did I. I just helped her fly away." L's eyes widened. B remained placid on the surface, but the excitement bubbling up inside him was getting hard to contain. L had figured it out, and he was ready for the response.

"Did you kill A?"

"I didn't do anything to hurt Alice," parroted B. "I merely gave her a push in the right direction. Dropped a hint, as it were. What did you do for the girl..?"

L considered the question. Even before he began to stretch his memory, he knew that the answer was nothing. He had, in all honesty, spoken to her very little since they'd met. He had always felt that his effect on her life had been marginal at best. It seemed, maybe, he had not been correct. If B was right, and at the moment that seemed the most logical conclusion, then just by existing he had somehow tortured her. What had grown into an obsession in B had caused suffering and a dire inferiority complex in her. Literally, apparently. So if L had accidentally pushed her into that position, and B had somehow drawn her already fragile mind to the final conclusion, B's question was fair.

Which of them was good?

And seeing as, as L would have to freely admit, he had done nothing to or for A, he couldn't be the good one. At best, he could only be no-one to her. B had done something; he had offered her a way out. Whether that made him good or bad was up for debate. All that really mattered in the situation was what A had thought, and her poem was too vague to ever decipher for sure.

--

Several days after A's suicide, L returned to his room in the evening to discover B standing at the foot of his bed. B was wearing, very obviously this time, a set of his clothes. His formerly long hair had been hacked down to a poor copy of L's style. Aside from the extra inch of height B possessed, and L's ever so slightly more European features, they were duplicates. It was eerie.

"I'm better than you, L," B said calmly. Although his voice was level, his eyes seemed almost crazed. L was silent. Whatever B was going to say, L did not need to encourage him; he would say it anyway.

"I think they wondered if I killed my mother." This surprised L. It was honest, and B traditionally spoke in riddles. Or lied. "It's because I knew when she would die. I told people beforehand, but they thought I was disturbed. Afterwards, they wondered, I think." A pause. "I didn't."

"How did you know..?" L asked, unable to contain the curiosity. B still seemed completely calm in demeanour. It was just his eyes.

"I always know when people will die. I have a gift. I was born with a god's eyes."

That was when L saw B for the first time, as he really was, as he always had been. As disturbed; highly, highly disturbed. Maybe it had been the death of his parents, or maybe it had happened before that. Maybe, like A, it was actually about him, L, and the endless competition they were engaged in. B probably could tell when some people were going to die, but not because of some divine power passed down to him by a god. B could tell, because he was a murderer. Even if he hadn't used his own hands, he had killed A, and who knew if that was the first time. He would do it again. That much was obvious. He was deranged; seriously, seriously deranged.

"I know which of us is good, B," L told him. B smirked. "The one of us that is good, will be the winner. And I will be the winner." B scowled. The calmness fell at once away like flimsy paper streamers from the ceiling. All that was left was the challenge. The desperation.

"I will be the winner!" shouted B, moving in on L and grasping him by the forearms. He shoved him backwards, causing the two of them to trip and fall to the floor. B never let slip his grip for a moment. He clutched L in such a manner that the teenager could not pull away. "It will take me some time to get ready, but I will prepare myself, and I will be the winner! I will top you, and you will be nothing but the bottom!" The convoluted threats or promises that B was spouting whistled past L's head. He had no idea what his attacker was talking about. All he could really tell was that he'd struck the most tender of nerves.

B pressed L's arms firmly against the floor, deliberately tightening his grip to hurt his obsession. L gave no sign that it hurt. He gave no sign that he was even aware of him. It infuriated B, who, allowing his temper to rise up in an unusual concession of his rationality, forced their faces together in what was partly a kiss, but primarily a bite. When they separated, L's lower lip spouted blood profusely. B spat more of the red liquid down on him, before clambering to his feet.

"Beyond Birthday will surpass L," he announced, before fleeing from the room.

Now, at sixteen, L did not know where Beyond Birthday, B, was. No-one had seen him since that day, and it was assumed, by L, that he was out there somewhere, planning some way of showing L that he was the 'winner' of their little game.

After B had run away from the orphanage, Wammy began quite quickly to fill it with various other children. None of them were as intelligent as L, some of them were actually not that remarkable at all, and a small handful managed to reach up towards B's level. Wammy had decided by this point that, after the incident with Beyond Birthday, and the threats, competition would not be encouraged in any way, and that L's identity would remain a secret. L was known to the other children simply as an assistant to Watari; the newly devised pseudonym for Wammy. They did not even believe him to be particularly gifted, and L was happy with the illusion. He no longer went by L in public. He was saving the letter for later. Somehow, in covering his fake name with another fake name, he almost forgot his original identity. He had always tried somewhat to distance himself from the little boy he had once been, but now he was truly losing track of him.

It was at sixteen, that L truly became L, and forgot Lawliet.


End file.
